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Relationships: This person is out of service

This morning, a completely empty, shiny new train pulled into the station. An empty train at rush hour! Jackpot! Whenever this happens, I know that my day is going to go well. But the train didn’t slow down. I started to feel a small knot of panic. No. It can’t be. But it was. The train didn’t stop. It went straight through the station. I stared incredulously as the train chugged, empty, right past me. On the back was a sign that said, “This train is out of service.” Well that could have been brought to my attention before I got my hopes up! I looked around to see if anyone felt as hurt as I did, but everyone just moved back to the wall and continued playing solitaire on their phones.

It made me think about how, sometimes, people look perfectly available. They go through all the motions of being socially capable human beings. But they are not. And there are various reasons why people are out of service. I’m not over my ex is the classic one. But there are other, more creative ways to be out of service. I’m afraid of commitment. I have so much going on right now. I love you but I’m not in love with you. Sometimes, we let people in, and it cuts us so deeply, that even when we think we’re healed, we’re not. So we just keep rolling through stations. Slowing down but never stopping.

My friend Claire recently came into contact with just such a person.

“He’s totally wrong for me,” she told me. “He just broke up with his girlfriend of eight years and he’s completely out of service.” But somehow that wrongness felt right. She felt a genuine connection to him. It was kind of a warm liking; a soft place to land. Comfort. He would feed her cat when she had to stay late at work. They would sit and watch movies. They would walk his dog. He made her laugh. He was helping her slowly rebuild what she had lost in her recent break-up, and she felt she was doing the same for him. They were being each other’s training wheels. Getting each other back on track.

“I feel like when he looks at me, he actually sees me, and likes me,” she told me. And even if he wasn’t right for her, it was nice to remember that it was possible for her to be liked that way. To be seen that way.

So it crushed her when she found out he was getting back together with his ex-girlfriend.

“But I thought you were out of service!” Claire said to him.

“Well, I was,” he stammered, “but I’ve got to stop sometime.”

Claire is shocked at how hurt she is. She was getting used to the warmth of companionship and just got shoved back into the winter air. And she wonders if when he was looking into her eyes, he was thinking about his ex-girlfriend. Had he really seen her clearly or was he just using her to fill the female space beside him until he could get back together with his ex? What made him decide to slow down and stop with this other girl? Why not her? When will it be her turn to have the train stop for her? When is it her turn to get on a shiny new train, sit on a clean seat and know she’s going in the right direction?